The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Editorial: What's the cost, what's the exit strategy?

Last Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the Islamic State and Iraq (see "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot" ) and heard testimony from the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global
Coalition to Counter ISIL John Allen as well as Brig Gen Michael Fantini
and Brig Gen Gregg Olson.

In the hearing, US House Rep. Alan Grayson (above) raised the issue of spending.

US House Rep Alan Grayson: Gen Olson, trying to piece together
information from public sources, it appears to me that we're spending
roughly a million dollars for every ISIS fighter that the US military
kills. Does that sound right to you?Brig Gen Gregg Olson: The figure that we understand for the operation cost per day is about 8.5 million dollars. US House Rep Alan Grayson: But am I right to think that we're
spending approximately a million dollars for every single ISIS fighter
that US forces kill?Brig Gen Gregg Olson: I-I haven't done the math, sir.US House Rep Alan Grayson: Alright let's assume for the sake of the
argument that that's correct. Does it make sense for us to be deploying
the most powerful military force that the world has ever seen and spend
one million dollars to kill some man standing in the desert, 6,000
miles from the closest American shore, holding a 40-year-old weapon?
Does that make sense?Brig Gen Gregg Olson: The military strategy as designed provides US
support to a coalition that will degrade, dismantle and ultimately
defeat ISIL.US House Rep Alan Grayson: What about you, Gen Fantini? Can you think
of ways that we could spend less than a million dollars and still keep
America safe for every gentleman standing in a desert, 6,000 miles away,
whom we kill?Brig Gen Michael Fantini: Congressman, I-I can't address the math
that you're presenting. I don't know whether that's accurate or not.
Uh, from the perspective of continuing with the strategy of developing
local forces, to enable those local forces with coalition support to
degrade and defeat ISIL, I would submit that is a worthy expenditure of
resources. US House Rep Alan Grayson: Well let's talk about that. You of
course are very, very familiar with what Gen Powell said about what
makes for a good effective war and what doesn't. Gen Powell said that
we need a vital national security interest that's pursued by a clear
strategy, we need overwhelming force and we need an exit strategy. So
let's start with you on that, Gen Allen, what is our exit strategy?

Cost of War in Iraq

Every hour taxpayers in the United States are paying $365,297 for Cost of War in Iraq.

[Total thus far] $819,388,801,813

With that kind of a price tag, you'd think Americans would be asking for Barack to clearly define a plan and to explain its costs.

You'd also think they'd be asking what is the exit strategy for the latest wave of the never-ending Iraq War.

Grayson asked.

US House Rep Alan Grayson: Well let's talk about that. You of
course are very, very familiar with what Gen Powell said about what
makes for a good effective war and what doesn't. Gen Powell said that
we need a vital national security interest that's pursued by a clear
strategy, we need overwhelming force and we need an exit strategy. So
let's start with you on that, Gen Allen, what is our exit strategy?Envoy John Allen: The exit strategy is an Iraq that ultimately is
territorial secure, sovereign, an ISIL that has been denied safe haven
ultimately has been disrupted to the point where it has no capacity to
threaten at an existential level the government of Iraq and the nation
of the Iraqi people and ulitmatly ends up in a state that does not
permit it to threaten the United States or our homeland.US House Rep Alan Grayson: General Allen, that doesn't sound like a strategy to me. That sounds like a wish list.Envoy John Allen: You know --US House Rep Alan Grayson: You certainly understand the difference between a strategy and a wish list.Envoy John Allen: And-and I do. And this strategy, in fact, has a
whole series of lines of effort that converge on Da'ash to prevent it
from doing the very things that I just mentioned. US House Rep Alan Grayson: But what is our strategy?Envoy John Allen: The strategy is to pursue a series of lines of
effort from defense of the homeland to stabilization of the Iraqi
government to the countering of the Da'ash message, to the disruption of
its finances, to the -- uh -- impediment of the foreign fighters to the
empowerment of our allies to the le-leadership of a coalition
ultimately aimed to the defeat of Da'ash. That's a strategy.US House Rep Alan Grayson: But none of those are exit strategies, right?Envoy John Allen: There is no exit strategy for this. This is about
dealing with Da'ash. This is about defeating Da'ash. The success of
the strategy is not about exit. The secees -- success of the strategy
is about empowering our partners so that they can ultimately restore the
territorial integrity and the sovereignty of a country and deny Da'ash
the ability ultimately to, uh, to do that.

Once upon a time there was an Out of Iraq Caucus in the House.

It's a shame that those who belonged to the caucus are largely silent on Iraq today.

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